I’ve written several times already this year about my desire to make my life easier by spending more energy on the things I’m good at, and less on the things I’m not good at. And as I’ve explained before, one of the things I’m not good at is keeping up with advertising, especially in the post-FOSTA world of ad malls playing stupid games with women’s livelihoods and unschooled clients wasting my time in a way I’m not temperamentally equipped to handle. In “Diversification” I talked about creating new income streams and farming out some of the tasks I’m not good at, but there’s another strategy I plan to implement that I’m sure y’all want to know about: by the end of the year (if possible) I’d like to be off of formal escort advertising sites entirely. This doesn’t mean I’m going Under the Radar, which would be impossible anyhow; it just means I want to increase the fraction of my business which does not come from traditional ad malls such as Eros and Slixa to 100%. I am moving toward all of my business being either regulars or people who approach me via my blog, Twitter, other writing, my public speaking, TV interviews, etc. Then next year, I want to tighten it up even more so that by the end of 2020 I’m no longer taking new clients without a direct recommendation from one of my friends. I have no plans to stop working any time soon; I enjoy my work and I like making people happy. What I don’t like is having to constantly deal with advertising, screening and all that jazz. If you’ve already seen me or plan to soon, you’ve got nothing to worry about; once you’re a proven client you are “in” unless you start acting like a flake or a danger. But if you want to be in that select group, I suggest you not wait much longer; I have a good special going for five more days, which you can take advantage of as long as you book by Tuesday (even if the actual session is later). I’ll also be trying out a new newsletter-type system for touching base with my gentlemen; if you’ve already seen me professionally you should be getting an email from me soon. And if you haven’t, there’s only one way to get onto the list.
Posts Tagged ‘advertising’
In the Club
Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged advertising, bad customers, internet, psychology on March 15, 2019| 3 Comments »
Diary #452
Posted in Diary, tagged advertising, Backpage, blogging, censorship, internet, law on February 26, 2019| 5 Comments »
I thought last week seemed slower than it should’ve been, since the snow was over and the weather is warming up. So I checked my Eros ad, and discovered that it was not online because someone over there decided my ad (which has been on the site in much the same form for years) violated some of their new and ever-changing “publishing standards”. This has become the new normal for US escorts; all of our advertising sites are being murdered, committing suicide, dropping dead of sheer terror or else lobotomizing or castrating themselves. Eros is in the latter category; although it has periodically installed some new and ninnyish changes over the past few years, ever since FOSTA it has gone completely bonkers, inventing new and increasingly-incomprehensible rules and then declining ads for failing to adhere to them, yet refusing to tell advertisers what rule was broken other than “it’s a picture” or “it’s text”. So all one can do is to guess, make changes based on the guess, resubmit the ad and then wait a day or two for Eros to either post it or decline it again. I’ve been watching friends deal with this for the past year, and I reckon it was finally my turn; luckily, I’m a good guesser and got it right in only two tries (taking almost a week). If you’ve had this problem yourself and can’t understand why they won’t tell you what’s going on, I suggest you familiarize yourself with both the text of FOSTA and the prosecution’s rhetoric in the Backpage persecution. The law now prohibits “knowing” faciltation of sex work, and the government has claimed that Backpage’s telling advertisers WHICH words and pictures were prohibited constitute “knowing” facilitation (this is phrased as “Backpage told pimps how to disguise their sex trafficking ads”). So Eros is whistling past the graveyard, thinking that the government won’t simply change the rules again when they feel like it. And the sooner I can broaden my media exposure to the point where Eros (and every other ad platform) is superfluous to my income generation, the happier I’ll be.
Double Dip
Posted in Miscellaneous, tagged advertising, sex work is work, The War on Whores on February 22, 2019| 1 Comment »
I’m going to be spending a lot of time promoting The War on Whores and my other projects this year, and frankly, I’d like to get ahead on my budget so there’s less financial pressure on me while I’m doing all that. So I’ve decided to rerun not one but two of my specials from last year at the same time! For the rest of the winter (ie, until March 19th) you can take advantage of whichever of these specials strikes your fancy; as bargains, they’re pretty comparable. I got really good response from my “Two Out of Three” special, so let’s remind y’all of that one first:
…I’ll give you an extra half-hour when you book an hour-long date and an extra hour when you book a two- or three-hour date. And if you book four hours or more, I’ll only charge you my social rate instead of my full rate! If you look at the math, you’re basically getting a date of any given length for about 2/3 as much as it would normally cost (up to a whole weekend, after which it starts to flatten out)…
The other option is a special on a rate I call my “Day Tripper“, which seems to have slipped beneath most people’s radar though it’s quite a good deal; you get 7-10 hours of mixed private and social time for only 2/3 of the cost of an overnight. Yes, that fits neatly in with the “Two Out of Three”, but that’s the normal rate; for the special, you don’t get a price break but I’m willing to travel anywhere in the United States to do one. If you live in Seattle or within three hours of travel from here, I’ll knock $200 off the price instead. If you’d like to take advantage of ether of those, email me and we’ll discuss scheduling. Of course, you could also set up a screening of my movie and get me to come to your city that way; one way or the other, I won’t complain.
In the News (#914)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged advertising, agency denial, Australia, bad customers, brothels, California, censorship, consensual crime, cops, dating, dirty, Elephant in the Parlor, end demand, ethics, fantasy, fascism, Florida, Georgia, hotels, If Men Were Angels, Illinois, internet, law, Little Boxes, Madonna/whore, New Hampshire, politicians, prohibitionist myths, propaganda, Pyrrhic Victory, racism, rape, Rough Trade, Russia, sex offender registry, sporting events, Stupor Bowl, surveillance, Texas, The Course of a Disease, The War Goes On, Theatrics, tits, Top Cop, United Kingdom, universal criminality, Vendetta, violence vs. sex workers, Worse Than I Thought on February 20, 2019| 4 Comments »
Perhaps being a victim of privacy invasion will help Jeff Bezos realize the evils of what his company is enabling. – Glenn Greenwald
Despite this being an insultingly-low sentence, it’s doubtful he’d be convicted at all in the US:
A man has been sentenced to a suspended jail term after he raped a Canberra sex worker during an appointment…Aaron John Miller…and the woman agreed…[on a 2-hour] session…[with] various extra services…The woman explicitly said she would not permit a particular activity. However, during the appointment Miller went outside the bounds of their agreement…Police identified him through his credit card and when interviewed he said he had engaged in the offensive conduct because he got carried away [while drunk]…
Fake “sex trafficking” ads dreamed up by prohibitionists demonstrate the depravity of their lurid masturbatory fantasies about our lives and work. Here’s one a reader recently captured in Atlanta airport. Note that the white girl in the fake “ad” appears to be about 11, and that the hand of the “client” is dark-skinned. “Sex trafficking” mythology is rooted in racism, and racism still permeates the sick minds of those obsessed with it.
…the New Hampshire Supreme Court…upheld the convictions of three women who were arrested for going topless on a beach in 2016. In the 3-to-2 ruling, the court decided that a city ordinance in Laconia, N.H., that bars women [but not men] from exposing their nipples did not discriminate based on gender…
The Course of a Disease (#799)
While the US medical establishment obediently parrots “sex trafficking” hysteria, European medical groups are increasingly following the lead of Médecins du Monde, The Lancet and UNAIDS:
[UK] nurses are calling for prostitution to be decriminalised. They argue sex workers are more likely to access health care such as regular STI checks. And they would be able to report violent clients to police without fear of arrest…Bristol nurse Lou Cahill has ensured it will be debated at the Royal College of Nursing’s annual conference in May. Her motion seeks to decriminalise the trade…[and] the union will demand a law change if the motion is passed…
You just can’t keep an out-of-control prohibitionist down:
…Lauren Book’s human trafficking bill had [an idiotic] idea: allow [opportunists] to sue [whichever] hotels [had the deepest pockets by claiming they once had sex there]…[Obviously] the powerful hotel lobby [had no choice but] to kill [something that would’ve allowed unscrupulous lawyers to treat them as ATMs, but]…Book…is back with a new version of the bill…[which] does not include allowing [opportunistic nuisance lawsuits]…but…does require hotels [to indocrinate] their employees [in misogynistic surveillance techniques]…and…Creates a registry of [people who have consensual sex or are related in any way to sex workers]…
I hope you amateurs are enjoying the changes to the internet your silence helped to create:
…As the use of online dating sites continues to increase, so will opportunities for unsuspecting people to be tricked into dangerous situations by human traffickers. But the companies that own and operate these sites can do something about it. We are gathering signatures to petition the Match Group, owners of the popular dating sites, Tinder, Plenty of Fish, OkCupid, Match, and more, to implement [surveillance] features to help keep [magical ninja pimps] off of their platform…sex traffickers have long learned it’s [sic] benefits for tricking young people into sexual exploitation…
Yes, Polaris (with pigs in tow, as usual) is now coming after your dating apps and websites. Because though it usually starts with us, it never stops with us.
Another pogrom to enable a sociopathic billionaire’s twisted psychodrama:
A nationwide [entrapment pogrom] intended to curb [consensual] sex…by targeting [peaceful] people trying to [arrange consensual] sex netted more than 390 arrests since last month, 38 of them in Cook County. The [bizarrely-named] National Johns Suppression Initiative, the 17th [pogrom] of its kind since 2011, spanned 14 states and ran from Jan. 13 to Feb. 3…[pigs] placed [fake] ads on “more than a dozen…websites [people use to arrange consensual sex with other adults]”…and…led to at least 372 [peaceful men] arrested nationwide, including 21 charged with soliciting a [cop pretending to be an adult woman engaged in ageplay]…another 23 people arrested during the sting are also facing human trafficking charges [for being associates of sex workers. At least] thirty-five [sex workers] were [also arrested]…
Since August 17, [Maria] Butina has been [cag]ed at the Alexandria Detention Center…she spent her 30th birthday in solitary confinement, in…a seven-by-ten-foot room with a steel door, cement bed, and two narrow windows, each three inches wide. She has been allowed outside for a total of 45 minutes. On December 13, Butina pleaded guilty to conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of the Russian Federation. She faces a possible five-year sentence in federal prison…But…The government’s case against Butina is extremely flimsy and appears to have been driven largely by a desire for publicity. In fact, federal prosecutors were forced to retract the most attention-grabbing allegation in the case—that Butina used sex to gain access and influence…Despite the lack of evidence…prosecutors—abetted by an uncritical media willing to buy into the idea of a Russian agent infiltrating conservative political circles—were intent on getting a win…
Debbie Vasquez…was 14…when she was first molested by her pastor in Sanger [Texas]…It was the first of many assaults that…destroyed her teenage years and, at 18, left her pregnant…In June 2008, she paid her way to Indianapolis, where she and others asked leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention and its 47,000 churches to track sexual predators and take action against congregations that harbored or concealed abusers…Southern Baptist leaders rejected nearly every proposed reform. The abusers haven’t stopped. They’ve hurt hundreds more…In the decade since Vasquez’s appeal…more than 250 people who worked or volunteered in Southern Baptist churches have been charged with sex crimes…since 1998, roughly 380 Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers have faced allegations of sexual misconduct…They left behind more than 700 victims, many of them shunned by their churches…Some were urged to forgive their abusers or to get abortions. About 220 offenders have been convicted or took plea deals, and dozens of cases are pending…More than 100 are registered sex offenders. Some still work in Southern Baptist churches today…
While Amazon keeps supporting the fascist surveillance state, Bezos demands his privacy be exempt:
…Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos…published emails in which the [National] Enquirer’s parent company explicitly threatened to publish intimate photographs of Bezos and his mistress…unless Bezos agreed to a series of demands involving silence about the company’s conduct. In a perfect world, none of the sexually salacious material the Enquirer was threatening to release would be incriminating or embarrassing to Bezos: it involves consensual sex between adults that is the business of nobody other than those involved and their spouses. But that’s not the world in which we live…The prospect of naked selfies of Bezos would obviously generate intense media coverage and all sorts of adolescent giggling and sanctimonious judgments…The…Enquirer was…actively devoted to Donald Trump’s election…while Bezos, as the owner of the steadfastly anti-Trump Washington Post, is viewed by Trump as a political enemy…the NSA, FBI [and] other agencies…have a long…history of [such spying], which is why…Democratic adoration for those agencies, and the recent bipartisan further empowerment of them, was so disturbing…one of the stories we were able to report using the Snowden documents…is an active NSA program to collect…browsing records of porn site and sex chats, of people regarded by the U.S. Government as radical…in order to use their online sex habits to destroy their reputations. This is what and who the NSA, CIA and FBI are…[which is] deeply ironic…because Amazon…is a critical partner for the U.S. Government in building an ever-more invasive…surveillance state. Indeed, one of the largest components of Amazon’s business, and thus one of the most important sources of Bezos’ vast wealth and power, is working with the Pentagon and the NSA to empower the U.S. Government with more potent and more sophisticated weapons, including surveillance weapons…
Kamala Harris is now telling her brainwashed fans that she was a “progressive” prosecutor:
The 1990s were among the most punishing decades in the recent history of American justice. Zealous prosecutors competed to put the most people behind bars, and politicians were eager to pass new laws to extend sentences. In San Francisco, Terence Hallinan was one of the only prosecutors in America bucking the trend. A legendary civil rights activist, defense attorney…and…outspoken advocate for marijuana legalization, Hallinan rode a wave of discontent…to become San Francisco district attorney in 1995. He swiftly fired senior prosecutors…and called drug use a victimless crime…Yet Hallinan…was expelled in 2003 after just two terms in office, despite San Francisco’s notorious liberal bent. An up-and-coming young career prosecutor named Kamala Harris…carefully cultivated a base of support among [cops]…wealthy donors, and [other authoritarians]…Far from the “smart on crime” mantra she touted in her successful bid to become California’s attorney general…Harris’s first campaign reflected familiar tactics in an era of booming mass incarceration…
When it comes to mass surveillance, fascism beats communism hands down:
San Francisco’s government does not own an all-seeing network of surveillance cameras that watch people as they go about their daily business. However…if officialdom wants to find out what people have been up to, it has access to thousands upon thousands of surveillance cameras that record exactly that. In many cases, private residents and businesses installed these cameras themselves and offered access to [the pigs]…the modern surveillance state…is largely driven by good intentions, private fears, and innovative entrepreneurs vying for government contracts. A map and dataset of 2,753 cameras owned by private and public operators in San Francisco was published last week by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)….”The District Attorney refused to reveal the locations of an additional 510 cameras,” notes EFF…A small number…are official government surveillance cameras…a few are [repurposed] red-light cameras…Two hundred and forty-nine of the cameras are maintained by the Union Square Business Improvement District (USBID)…But the vast majority—2,406 never-blinking lenses—[we]re…installed by private businesses, individuals, and associations…
Virtually the only people who still profess to believe this nonsense are cops and politicians:
…[prohibitionist propaganda claimed] Atlanta was supposed to be a bastion of sex during Super Bowl week, with both…sex work…and sex trafficking…on the rise. Yet sex workers say that [as is typical for sex mega sports events] neither seemed to be occurring at higher levels than usual in Atlanta. The lack of sex trafficking wasn’t surprising: The claim that sex trafficking increases during the Super Bowl is a many–times–busted myth. But I wondered why sex workers weren’t raking in the cash. According to them, the sex trafficking stings, particularly an FBI anti-trafficking operation in beginning on Jan. 23, were partly to blame…
Only partly; I can assure younger sex workers that the Super Bowl and similar events have never been good for business, for reasons that should be obvious.
In the News (#912)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged A Mound of Filth, A Woman's Point of View, activism, advertising, agency denial, Arizona, asset seizure, Australia, Backpage, Bangladesh, California, cell phones, censorship, Colorado, condoms, cops, dirty, Disaster, drugs, fantasy, FBI, Georgia, Hard Numbers, hotels, hysteria, idaho, law, Micromanagement, Most Uptight Nerd Ever, Nepal, New Hampshire, porn, prohibitionist myths, Pyrrhic Victory, racism, rescue industry, Rescued To Death, Schadenfreude, Signs, sporting events, streetwalkers, Stupor Bowl, surveillance, Texas, The Missing Word, The More the Better, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, Wise Investment on February 13, 2019| 2 Comments »
Hotel…staff are being told to imagine that sex slavers lurk behind every pair of big sunglasses. – Elizabeth Nolan Brown
A Colorado industrial hemp company filed a federal lawsuit…against the Idaho State Police after its 6,701 pound shipment was seized during a stop in Boise…The company’s driver was…arrested for…trafficking marijuana from a farm in Oregon to a distribution center in Colorado…the seizure and arrest were both unlawful due to the 2018 federal farm bill and that the goods being transported were hemp and not marijuana…Both plants fall under the cannabis family, though Congress approved the industrial use of hemp last year in products such as clothing, biofuel, building materials and paper…a…spokes[pig bloviated that]…Idaho law recognizes both hemp and marijuana as illegal…[but] “The 2018 Farm Bill prohibits states from blocking the transportation of industrial hemp in interstate commerce…states cannot prohibit the shipment of a legal good through interstate commerce”…
Every debunking of anti-whore BS helps:
Misha Mayfair, a former cam girl turned porn performer…struggles with the discord between what she sees in the media, and what she experiences on a day-to-day basis. “People really have this strange, falsified fantasy world that they think porn exists in,” she tells me. “They think it operates in this world where Taken has happened: they imagine that it’s all blonde girls who have been dumped into car boots and stolen by local Albanian men… It’s like: do I live in the same reality as everyone?” Mayfair debunks some of the most frustrating myths she’s come across so far…
That word appears only in a tag hidden way down at the bottom:
The Telegraph talked to 22 Nepali and Bangladeshi employees of Karex’s condom and catheter factories…Despite the products they produce being supplied to some of the world’s biggest and most “ethically conscious” brands, all told similar stories…workers were living in cramped and undignified conditions, housed up to 12 in a room in damp and unhygienic dormitories. For £9 a month deducted from their wages, workers in Pontian received half of a steel bunkbed – but no mattress – a piece of string on the grimy wall for a wardrobe, access to a filthy, broken toilet, and a kitchen consisting of two gas burners…In Port Klang, a dormitory of 12 workers seen by the Telegraph was more hygienic, but still devoid of basic facilities. In one corner stood a makeshift dining table crafted out of scrap plywood, with upturned buckets as chairs…Karex produces five billion condoms a year, accounting for roughly 15 per cent of the world market. It has a turnover of nearly £70 million and it’s senior director, Goh Siang, is listed as one Malaysia’s richest men…On the company website, a corporate video claims the firm is “helping humanity one condom at a time”. It describes itself as a “champion social responsibility and sustainability”…
…Elijah Rising…lead[s an] hours-long [expedition to annoy sex workers]…once-a-month…[one of them fantasized] “A lot of these women here are being trafficked…They came over (from Asia) and they were expecting a job…But now because of the papers they have, the person who brought them here is kind of in control of that whole situation.” Vanessa Forbes, inter[ference] coordinator at Elijah Rising, said…”Everyone goes out of their way to find the missing 17-year-old suburban white girl, but let’s talk about the women who are here in the middle of our neighborhoods who [do really mundane work]…They are hidden in plain sight. They are [not] overlooked [by cops looking for low-hanging fruit].” While efforts by community groups to bring [foment hysteria around imaginary] human trafficking…have been successful…not all law enforcement believe the [propaganda they’re continually fed]…
Most of the story is just pigs oinking about their fascist collaborations with private companies and other pig gangs.
Violent crime is way down in San Francisco…But…police recorded a 170 percent jump in reports of human trafficking in 2018. The huge spike appears to be connected to the federal shutdown of sex-for-sale websites…But [using prohibitionist lies that] Backpage was linked to sex trafficking of underage girls, [politicians] in Washington voted almost unanimously to [give themselves the long-desired power to censor the internet]…“It has suddenly re-empowered this whole underclass of pimps and exploiters,” said Pike Long, deputy director of St. James Infirmary…Long estimates the number of street-based sex workers has tripled…
The article also features a spokespig making the outrageous lie that “abatement” means helping the thing that is supposed to be “abated”.
Quite Possibly the Most Uptight Nerd Ever (#867)
Yet another “Uber for escorts” app; I’ve never heard a single good thing about any of these:
Escort booking app Smooci is finally coming to the UK…London will be the seventh city in which it operates…[starting] on 14 February. Other cities…include Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore and Manilla. Currently the only European city covered is Berlin (and there are only three escorts registered there so far) but Amsterdam will also follow suit with its own launch in February. The app promises to make escorting safer for both parties, using a two-way rating system…Buyers can see when escorts are available, check their ratings, chat to them and negotiate service requirements…Smooci does not take a cut from the transactions. Instead it’s primarily by a premium membership tier, functioning in a similar way to many dating apps…
Any new technology which can be used to spy on you, will be:
Family Tree DNA, one of the largest private genetic testing companies whose home-testing kits enable people to trace their ancestry and locate relatives, is working with the FBI and allowing agents to search its vast genealogy database…Federal and local [cops]…have used public genealogy databases for more than two years to solve cold cases, including the landmark capture of the [cop who was the] Golden State Killer, but the cooperation with Family Tree DNA and the FBI marks the first time a private firm has agreed to voluntarily allow [pigs to root through] its database…
Another Australian state moves toward decriminalization:
July 3 this year will be the 30th anniversary of the release of the final report from the Fitzgerald Inquiry, a judicial inquiry that found systemic corruption among Queensland Police in relation to organised sex work…The now infamous report concluded that arguments by police for special powers and a sex work-related police squad were unjustified. Yet, 30 years later, Queensland Police…still ha[ve]…extreme powers in relation to sex work…Imagine running an independent business where it’s illegal to contact a colleague to let them know a client has arrived or left. It’s also illegal to work with another colleague, employ a receptionist to manage your calls, use a driver that a colleague recommends, or describe the services you provide in your advertising…Every day we choose between working safely or legally…Police look through sex worker advertising…searching for an incorrect word or banned acronym. Finding such a breach triggers their ability to gain a warrant, set up a sting, pose as a client, make a booking, turn up at a sex workers’ workplace, pressure sex workers to agree to sex without condoms or other protection, and seek evidence for further charges. The evidence they are looking for includes: text messages to other workers about clients or bookings, proof of assisting colleagues with advertising, evidence of a receptionist, or the sharing of phones or accommodation…
Municipal [politicians] in San Francisco unveiled an ordinance proposal…that, if passed, would make the city the first in the country to completely ban government use of facial recognition systems. The bill would also establish an audit system for agencies acquiring any surveillance technologies. “The propensity for facial recognition technology to endanger civil rights and civil liberties substantially outweighs its purported benefits, and the technology will exacerbate racial injustice and threaten our ability to live free of continuous government monitoring,” the proposed legislation reads…
“Cuckoo Clock” McCain’s creepy, racist BDSM fantasies are getting out of control:
Cindy McCain was heard in a radio interview…claiming she stopped a human trafficking incident at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, but Phoenix police has debunked that claim…“I spotted…a woman of a different ethnicity than the child…[so] I went over to the police and told them what I saw, and they went over and questioned her, and, by God, she was trafficking that kid.” McCain [also fantasized] that she discovered the woman was waiting for the man who bought the child to arrive from his flight…Phoenix police said…that while [cops] did respond to the Jan. 30 call…they were able to determine “there was no evidence of criminal conduct or child endangerment”…
In McCain’s world, mixed-race families deserve to be harassed by cops for making racists uncomfortable.
The unsinkable Liz Brown with a deep dive into hotel “sex trafficking” surveillance:
…the surveillance tactics that have been adopted by hotel chains are part of a disturbing partnership between hospitality businesses, federal law enforcement, and rent-seeking nonprofits that increasingly seeks to track the movements and whereabouts of people, especially women, all over the country. Under pressure from the federal government and driven by persistent myths about the nature and prevalence of sex trafficking, hotel chains like Marriott have become the new frontiers of the surveillance state. Like the indiscriminate spying campaigns that grew out of the 9/11 attacks, it’s an effort based on panic, profiling, and stereotypes, and it is nearly certain to ensnare more innocents than it helps…these efforts have largely wound up as law-enforcement-driven attacks on sex workers and their clients, on immigrants, and on other members of marginalized communities…Many of these efforts fall under the purview of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) “Blue Campaign,” which has been in place since 2010…as an update to the war-on-terror surveillance systems developed under the George W. Bush administration. It relies on tactics adapted from “If You See Something, Say Something“…
As the myth implodes, you’ll see ever more rats deserting this sinking ship:
Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields said that…claims of multiple sex trafficking arrests in the city of Atlanta during that period were not…true…the Department of Homeland Security announced that 33 people had been arrested for sex trafficking in the Atlanta area. When asked about those arrests…Shields was far more particular with her wording. She pointed out that the APD works with the FBI on the Match Task Force to arrest sex [workers]…on a year-round basis…”it was not sex trafficking victims in Metro Atlanta, because I think that label is unfairly applied to this city”…
A Woman’s Point of View (#910)
More on the new organization “Decriminalize Sex Work”:
In response to the new federal law that resulted in widespread censorship of websites…a new national organization has formed to repeal this law and decriminalize sex work nationwide. The mission of Decriminalize Sex Work – a new national organization with offices in Austin, New York City, and Washington DC – is “to end the prohibition of prostitution in the United States.” The…national strategy is to inform the public about the harms caused by prohibition, with a focus on lobbying state governments to remove penalties for adult prostitution and all other forms of consensual sex work if conducted in private… “Dozens of allied organizations are already doing great work advocating for decriminalization,” said Kaytlin Bailey, communications director for Decriminalize Sex Work. “What makes our organization different is that Donald Trump’s new law inspired a California philanthropist to donate sufficient seed money to pay for a full-time staff and lobbying firms”…
Contest Winners
Posted in Perception, Tyranny, tagged advertising, censorship, consensual crime, Disaster, internet, law on February 11, 2019| Leave a Comment »
As I reported in December, the escort ad site Slixa held a contest for essays about how FOSTA/SESTA has harmed sex workers. Well, the winners were announced this week! I’m going to keep this short so you’ll have time to read the three winning essays, because I think it’s important for my readers to have as many perspectives on this situation as possible. The first place winner was “Against FOSTA/SESTA: One Canary’s Cry From Inside the Coal Mine” by Lucy Kahn; second place was “The Death Of The Dabbler and The Erasure Of Sex Work From The Common Internet” by Grace Marie; and third place was “Global Implications Of FOSTA” by Meghan Peterson. In addition to a cash prize, a sex worker rights organization of each winner’s choice received a matching donation. Kudos to all three winners; we need a lot more sex workers to join them in clearly expressing to the public exactly how much damage the War on Whores is causing everyone, not just sex workers and clients. Because as long as amateurs think their necks aren’t in the government’s noose along with ours, they’ll continue to blissfully sit in the pot while their rulers keep turning up the heat.
In the News (#908)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged advertising, agency denial, Arizona, California, censorship, consensual crime, cops, Divided We Fall, Egypt, FBI, gay rights, hysteria, illegal aliens, Lack of Evidence, language, Morality Lessons, neofeminism, New York, Oregon, politicians, porn, propaganda, racism, rape, restaurants, sex work is work, Something Rotten In Sweden, Surplus Women, The Public Eye, To Molest and Rape, Top Cop, Traffic Jam, Under Review, United Kingdom, universal criminality, violence vs. sex workers on January 30, 2019| 1 Comment »
Camming gave me money, and money changed my life. – Cortana Blue
Another sex worker turned performing artist:
Laika, 27, is an up-and-coming pop artist from Toronto…Though she’s new to the world of pop music, she’s entered it with somewhat of a celebrity status…because, up until recently, she’s been known by another alias: Cortana Blue…one of the most popular camgirls on the planet…Her premium Snapchat…currently has 2,500 followers, and would be much higher, had it not been previously [censored]…Her Twitter and Instagram both exceed the 100K follower mark, the latter having been [censored] on more than one occasion as well…A “past life” as a sex worker can be a source of stigma and shame for some public figures, but shifts in how sex workers interact with audiences on social media have helped artists like Cardi B…thrive in the mainstream in part because of—not in spite of—a career in sex work…[but] Cardi…left sex work before monetizing her other interests in a new career. Laika, on the other hand, doesn’t see sex work as a means to an end. Instead, she sees it as a tool that can be flipped and utilized to fight stigma, all while setting her apart in the music world…
“Promoting debauchery” is illegal in Egypt. You know, like “promoting prostitution” in the US:
An Egyptian TV host was sentenced to one year of hard labor for interviewing a gay sex worker…Mohamed El-Gheity, a well-known journalist in Egypt who has spoken out against homosexuality, is accused of promoting debauchery…The hosting channel, LTC, was taken off air for two weeks immediately after the episode aired for violating a decree…that bans the appearance of gay people on media outlets…While homosexuality is not explicitly illegal in Egypt, members of the LGBT community are often persecuted under an anti-prostitution law…
When you’re a cop, rape is minimized to “sexual misconduct”:
…[a rapist] Tucson [cop was] accused of sexual misconduct [instead of rape after he raped] a woman he was [persecuting]…[rapist] Richard Daniel told the woman he wouldn’t take her to jail if she would [let him orally rape her]…The woman’s husband was the one who called police to report the [rape]…Daniel was arrested Sunday, Jan. 20 on charges of unlawful sexual conduct by a police officer and tampering with evidence [but not rape]…
The UK press, partying like it’s 1999 and nobody’s heard of online escort ads yet:
Hundreds of men and women are openly advertising their services as sex workers on…controversial website Adultwork. Last year, a government report [fantas]ised…that [escort advertising] websites were “the most significant enabler of sex-trafficking in the UK”. The report f[antasise]d that the sites were being used by traffickers to control the profiles of sex workers…allowing women to be trafficked around the country for sex by criminal gangs…
It’s always “gangs”. Because you know women are too stupid to use AirBnB for ourselves. Also, escort ad sites are only “controversial” among authoritarians.
I’m Sure You Feel Safer Now (#736)
Cops never miss a chance to humiliate marginalized people:
…Cops from the Jacksonville [Florida] Sheriff’s Office found [a woman] at about 10:30 [PM on January 21st] night with a gunshot wound to her shoulder…[cops claim] she agreed to perform a sexual act with a man in exchange for Pringles potato chips and $5…[then] he [demanded] his $5 back and shot the woman…
Of course, the reporter didn’t bother to interview the woman, so there’s a strong possibility cops just made up the cheap price & chips. Cops in several places, especially Florida, now think it’s funny to humiliate marginalized women by offering them some low amount of money and fast food, then arresting them and telling the story to reporters, hardy-har-har.
Leave it to authoritarians to make an unconstitutional censorship scheme even worse:
An Arizona state [politician named Gail Griffin] has [introduced a new version of anti-porn crackpot Chris Sevier’s bill to]…require makers and distributors of Internet-connected devices to ship such devices with blocking software “that renders a website that displays obscene material inaccessible by default”…any Internet user who wants to deactivate the blocking software would have to pay “a onetime deactivation fee of at least $20 to the Arizona Commerce Authority”…[in this version] the money would be used to establish what the bill calls the “John McCain Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Prevention Fund”…[to] “provide grants to government agencies and private entities that work to [promote censorship, prohibition and racism]”…the bill provides a list of 10 types of projects that could be funded by the porn fee. First on the list is “build a border wall between Mexico and this state”…
Something Rotten in Sweden (#867)
The public will believe anything it sees on billboards, no matter how ridiculous:
For the sixth straight year, Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley rolled out a line of billboards and bus shelter posters to [promote anti-sex work propaganda]…This year’s bright yellow signage includes the [slogan], “He made me feel special, then he made me sell my body,” followed by, “He’s not a real boyfriend. This is human trafficking!”…four weeks of [the] ads [costs] about $133,000 [that could have been used for shelters for actual homeless teens]…“The Bay Area is still a hot spot for human trafficking,” O’Malley [fantasized]…
It’s rare to see a sympathetic article in the UK press:
…a [London] sex worker…[named] Anna…[said] her most traumatic experience remains the death of friend Destiny Lauren, murdered by a client in 2009…”When he didn’t have enough money to pay her he strangled her and left her half-naked in the bed, he tied her arms behind her back with stockings. Her brother found her like that.” A decade later, shocking parallels can be drawn between Destiny’s murder and that of escort Christina Abbotts last year as figures reveal a rise in violence against sex workers…Christina and Destiny are two of around 180 sex workers in the UK who were murdered between 1990 and 2015…In the year Destiny died, changes in legislation further penalised kerb-crawling as well as selling sex. The laws also made it easier for police to close premises where women were working together collectively [for safety]…
Another anti-migrant pogrom using the excuse of “sex trafficking”:
A federal grand jury in Oregon has returned two indictments charging six people with running sex trafficking organizations operating in the U.S., Canada and Australia…The FBI…coordinate[d pogroms] targeting [Asian massage parlors and advertising sites, to which they applied the dysphemism]…Asian sex trafficking networks. As part of the [pogrom], the FBI seized…about 500 [websites]…[and] a[rre]sted five [sex workers they labeled] victims in Oregon…
This article dramatically understates her awfulness, but it’s still not bad:
Harris’s [pretense to be] a progressive figure while simultaneously taking a “tough on crime” stance as a prosecutor has been a common thread throughout her career, way before Backpage and FOSTA…A New York Times op-ed published last week outlines several instances when, as California’s top prosecutor, she fought to keep people in jail…In her running announcement, Harris [uttered the tone-deaf statement], “I think it is a false choice to suggest that communities do not want law enforcement. Most communities do”…But [marginalized] people…would disagree with wanting more law enforcement presence in their communities, especially when it comes to sex work…
It’s fascinating to watch imbecile “journalists” tangled up in their own stupid assumptions:
Why are single women still mistaken for prostitutes? Especially, you would think, if that restaurant is in the middle of New York, one of the most progressive cities on the planet….when Clementine Crawford was reportedly told she could no longer sit at the bar of her favourite Manhattan restaurant, she was confused…”All these years we have been battling for a room of one’s own,” she wrote. “Little did we know it, but we are still fighting for a seat at the table (or bar, to be strictly accurate)”…eating alone as a single woman is – for many – a daunting process. The protective barrier of a book or, more recently, a phone, makes it easier. Somehow you feel less exposed, less vulnerable…
Yes, this idiot is actually obsessing about the fact that this happened at a restaurant, as though somehow women eating alone were the issue, when in actuality the problem is “progressive” laws that allow cops to police female sexuality based on their whims and supported by “progressive” assumptions that how a woman chooses to make money is any of “society’s” business. The stupid question in the headline is immediately answered in the story: New York is indeed a “progressive” city, one that thinks it has the right to interfere in people’s private business with violence. THAT is the issue, not fake “feminism” which divides women into “good” and “bad” and pretends that privileged white women being caught up in the authoritarian laws they support is somehow about inappropriate quoting of Virginia Woolf.
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